When you read this letter, you can’t help but think Goodman suggests 3rd Ward got overextended with an expensive expansion from Brooklyn to Philly. Gosh, you just can’t ignore the comparisons to Brownstoner, although a blog launch is a decidedly less costly affair — Indy Hall cofounder Alex Hillman has been tweeting about how some of this should have been spotted.

A 3rd Ward Brooklyn teacher spoke to our sister site Technically Brooklyn about how the Brooklyn space had been managed. Read that story here.

Find the letter below.

Dear Instructors,

It is with heavy hearts that we are emailing you today to let you know
that after seven wonderful years of serving our community, 3rd Ward is
closing its doors.

When we opened in 2006, our vision was to create a shared space for
our community of artists and entrepreneurs to have a place to work,
teach, learn, network and thrive. We’re proud to have been able to do
that for as long as we did. It would have been impossible without your
commitment and efforts, and we thank you all.

Yet, with the costs of running and operating our two locations in
Brooklyn and Philadelphia, we are sadly no longer able to remain in
business.

We will cancel all sections in progress and future sections by the end
of today. Students will receive a cancellation message fromhelp@3rdward.com, and they can respond to that same email if they have
any questions.

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We want make sure that our instructors are able to collect their
belongings before our doors officially close on October 11th, 2013. We
will have open hours from 10am-6pm on this Thursday and Friday, and
next week on Monday andTuesday for you to pick up any of your
materials. Additionally, we will be open from 9am-1pm this coming
Saturday, and12pm-4pm this coming Sunday.

Today is the last day that our Education team is working at 3rd Ward.
They have calculated all instructor, TA, Art Model payments and
transferred that information to the Finance department. If you have
any questions, please feel free to contact Nick Alexander atNick@3rdward.com. As we are operating with limited staff, please
understand that we will try to answer your email as quickly as
possible, but your patience is appreciated.

All the best,

Jason Goodman

3rd Ward

-30-

Juliana Reyes has been covering the Philadelphia tech scene since 2012. She's co-president of the Asian American Journalists Association Philadelphia chapter and a two-time Philadelphia News Award winner for "Community Reporting of the Year." The Bryn Mawr College grad lives in West Philly, likes her food spicy and wears jumpsuits often.

Its pretty weak, (and also “journalistically” lazy) to evoke the old Philly Brooklyn blame game here. The place was too big, too ambitious and Brooklyn started tanking before Philly even had a chance. But by all means continue this tired line of thinking, I’m sure Philadelphians aren’t sick to death of it.

http://www.christopherwink.com/ Christopher Wink

I’m confused — did we evoke the “Philly Brooklyn blame game?”

We just mentioned the similarities between two buzzy Brooklyn creative efforts that launched in Philly and shuttered their doors not long after. I think it’d be journalistically lazy for us to *not* remind readers of that, and I don’t think it’s anything negative to bear on Philly in this case. Thoughts?